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CNN Live Event/Special
2024 Presidential Debate; CNN Anchors and Political Commentators Discuss The Highlights Of The 2024 Harris-Trump Presidential Debate. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 10, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She hates Israel. If she's president I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now. And I've been pretty good at predictions. And I hope I'm wrong about that one.
[22:00:04]
She hates Israel. At the same time in her own way, she hates the Arab population because the whole place is going to get blown up, Arabs, Jewish people, Israel -- Israel will be gone. It would have never happened,. Iran was broke under Donald Trump.
Now, Iran has $300 billion because they took off all the sanctions that I had. Iran had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror. And they are spheres of terror, horrible terror. They had no money. It was a big story, and you know it. You covered it very well, actually. They had no money for terror. They were broke.
Now, they're a rich nation, and now what they're doing is they're spreading that money around. Look at what's happening with the Houthis and Yemen. Look at what's going on in the Middle East. This would have never happened. I will get that settled and fast, and I'll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended.
If I'm President Elect, I'll get it done before even becoming president.
LINSEY DAVIS, ABC NEWS REPORTER: Vice President Harris, he says you hate Israel.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's absolutely not true. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people. He knows that. He's trying to, again, divide and distract from the reality, which is, it is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security and foreign policy. It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on day one, according to himself. It is well known that he said of Putin that he can do whatever the hell he wants and go into Ukraine.
It is well known that he said, when Russia went into Ukraine, it was brilliant. It is well known he exchanged love letters with Kim Jong Un. And it is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be President again, because they're so clear they can manipulate you with flattery and favors.
And that is why so many military leaders who you have worked with have told me, you are a disgrace. That is why we understand that we have to have a president who is not consistently weak and wrong on national security, including the importance of upholding and respecting in highest regard our military.
DAVIS: Vice President Harris, thank you.
TRUMP: They're the ones, and she's the one that caused it. That's weak on national security by allowing every nation, last month for the year, 168 different countries sending people into our country. Their crime rates are way down. Putin endorsed her last week, said, I hope she wins.
And I think he meant it, because what he's gotten away with is absolutely incredible. It wouldn't have happened with me. The leaders of other countries think that they're weak and incompetent, and they are, they're grossly incompetent. And I just ask one question. Why does Biden go in and kill the Keystone Pipeline and approve the single biggest deal that Russia's ever made?
Nord Stream, too, the biggest pipeline anywhere in the world, going to Germany and all over Europe. Because they're weak and they're ineffective. And Biden, by the way, gets paid a lot of money.
DAVIS: President Trump, thank you. We have a lot of issues to get to.
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS REPORTER: We'll be right back with much more of this historic ABC News Presidential Debate from the National Constitution Center right here in Philadelphia. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:08:30]
ANNOUNCER: Live from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, here again, David Muir and Linsey Davis.
MUIR: Welcome back to this historic ABC News Presidential Debate tonight. We're going to continue here. And I want to turn to the war in Ukraine, we're now two-and-a-half years into this conflict. Mr. President, it has been the position of the Biden Administration that we must defend Ukraine from Russia, from Vladimir Putin, to defend their sovereignty, their democracy, that it's in America's best interest to do so, arguing that if Putin wins he may be emboldened to move even further into other countries.
You have said you would solve this war in 24 hours. You said so just before the break tonight. How exactly would you do that? And I want to ask you a very simple question tonight. Do you want Ukraine to win this war?
DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being uselessly -- people being killed by the millions. It's the millions. It's so much worse than the numbers that you're getting, which are fake numbers. Look, we're in for $250 billion or more because they don't ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary to getting this thing done than we are. They're in for $150 billion less because Biden and you don't have the courage to ask Europe, like I did with NATO. They paid billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars when I said either you pay up or we're not going to protect you anymore. So this may be one of the reasons they don't like me as much as they like weak people.
But, you take a look at what's happening. We're in for $250 billion to $275 billion. They're into $100 billion to $150 billion. They should be forced to equalize. With that being said, I want to get the war settled. I know Zelenskyy very well and I know Putin very well. I have a good relationship, and they respect your president. OK? They respect me. They don't respect Biden. How would you respect him? Why? For what reason? He hasn't even made a phone call in two years to Putin, hasn't spoken to anybody. They don't even try and get it. That is a war that's dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president. If I win, when I'm president-elect and what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other, I'll get them together, that war would have never happened.
[22:10:46]
And in fact, when I saw Putin after I left, unfortunately left because our country has gone to hell. But after I left, when I saw him building up soldiers, he did it after I left.
I said, oh, he must be negotiating. It must be a good strong point of negotiation. Well, it wasn't because Biden had no idea how to talk to him. He had no idea how to stop it. And now you have millions of people dead and it's only getting worse and it could lead to World War III.
Don't kid yourself, David. We're playing with World War III and we have a president that we don't even know if he's -- where is our president. We don't even know if he's a president.
MUIR: And just to clarify here --
TRUMP: They threw him out of a campaign like a dog. We don't even know. Is he our president? But we have a president that doesn't know he's alive.
MUIR: Your time is up. Just to clarify in the question, do you believe it's in the U.S. best interests for Ukraine to win this war? Yes or no?
TRUMP: I think it's the U.S.'s best interest to get this war finished and just get it done.
MUIR: All right. I will --
TRUMP: Negotiate a deal because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.
MUIR: I want to take this device, President Harris. I want to get your thoughts on support for Ukraine in this moment.
But also as commander-in-chief, if elected, how would you deal with Vladimir Putin? And would it be any different from what we're seeing from President Biden?
HARRIS: Well, first of all, it's important to remind the former president you're not running against Joe Biden, you're running against me.
I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up. And that's not who we are as Americans.
Let's understand what happened here. I actually met with Zelenskyy a few days before Russia invaded, tried, through force, to change territorial boundaries, to defy one of the most important international rules and norms, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
And I met with President Zelenskyy. I shared with him American intelligence about how he could defend himself.
Days later, I went to NATO's eastern flank to Poland and Romania. And through the work that I and others did, we brought 50 countries together to support Ukraine in its rightist defense.
And because of our support, because of the air defense, the ammunition, the artillery, the javelins, the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine stands as an independent and free country.
If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. And understand what that would mean, because Putin's agenda is not just about Ukraine. Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO, and what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence.
Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.
And why don't you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.
MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you. We've heard from both of you on Ukraine tonight.
Afghanistan came up in the last hour. I wanted her to respond to something you said earlier. And I'll -- please, I'll give you a minute here.
TURMP: Putin would be sitting in Moscow and he wouldn't have lost 300,000 men and women, but he would have been sitting in Moscow -- quiet, please. He would have been sitting in Moscow much happier than he is right now.
But eventually, you know, he's got a thing that other people don't have. He's got nuclear weapons. They don't ever talk about that. Got nuclear weapons. Nobody ever thinks about that.
And eventually, maybe he'll use him and maybe he hasn't been that threatening, but he does have that. Something we don't even like to talk about. Nobody likes to talk about it. But just so you understand, they sent her to negotiate peace before this war started. Three days later, he went in and he started the war because everything they said was weak and stupid. They said the wrong things.
[22:15:06]
War should have never started. She was the emissary. They sent her in to negotiate with Zelenskky and Putin. And she did. And the war started three days later.
MUIR: Vice President --
TRUMP: -- and that's the kind of talent we have with her. She is the worse that Biden. In my opinion, I think he is the worst President in the history of our country. She goes down as the worst Vice President in the history of our country.
But, let me tell you something. She is a horrible negotiator. They sent her in to negotiate. As soon as they left, Putin did the invasion.
MUIR: President Trump, thank you. You did bring up something. You said she went to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin? Can you clarify tonight?
HARRIS: Yet again, I said at the beginning of this debate, you're going to hear a bunch of lies coming from this fellow, and that is another one. When I went to meet with President Zelenskyy, I've now met with him over five times. The reality is, it has been about standing as America always should, as a leader, upholding international rules and norms, as a leader who shows strength understanding that the alliances we have around the world are dependent on our ability to look out for our friends and not favor our enemies, because you adore strong men instead of caring about democracy, and that is very much what is at stake here.
The President of the United States is Commander in Chief, and the American people have a right to rely on a President who understands the significance of America's role and responsibility in terms of ensuring that there is stability and ensuring we stand up for our principles and not sell them for the benefit of personal flattery.
MUIR: We've talked about Ukraine and Vladimir Putin. I do want to talk about Afghanistan. It came up in the first hour of this debate. I want to move on to Afghanistan.
TRUMP: Jens Stoltenberg said Trump did the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He got these countries, the 28 countries at the time, to pay up. He said, I've never seen. He is the head of NATO. He said, I've never seen. For years, we were paying almost all of NATO. We were being ripped off by European nations, both on trade and on NATO. I got them to pay up by saying one of the statements you made before, if you don't pay, we're not going to protect you.
MUIR: President Trump --
TRUMP: Otherwise we would have never gotten it. He said it was one of the most incredible jobs that he has ever seen done.
MUIR: Thank you. I want to turn to Afghanistan. It came up in the first hour of the debate, and we witnessed a poignant moment today on Capitol Hill honoring the soldiers who died in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I do want to ask the Vice President, do you believe you bear any responsibility in the way that withdrawal played out?
HARRIS: Well, I will tell you, I agreed with President Biden's decision to pull out of Afghanistan. Four presidents said they would, and Joe Biden did. And as a result, America's taxpayers are not paying the $300 million a day we were paying for that endless war. And as of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world, the first time this century.
But, let's understand how we got to where we are. Donald Trump, when he was President, negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine. He calls himself a deal maker. Even his National Security Advisor said it was a weak, terrible deal, and here is how it went down. He bypassed the Afghan government. He negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5,000 terrorists, Taliban terrorists released, and get this. No, get this. And the President at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David, a place of storied significance for us as Americans, a place where we honor the importance of American diplomacy, where we invite and receive respected world leaders.
And this former President, as President, invited them to Camp David, because he does not, again, appreciate the role and responsibility of the President of the United States to be Commander in Chief with a level of respect, and this gets back to the point of how he has consistently disparaged and demeaned members of our military, fallen soldiers, and the work that we must do to uphold the strength and the respect of the United States of America around the world.
MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you.
President Trump, your response to her saying that you began the negotiations with Taliban.
TRUMP: Yeah. Thank you. So, if you take a look at that period of time, the Taliban was killing our soldiers, a lot of them, with snipers. And I got involved with the Taliban because the Taliban was doing the killing. That's the fighting force within Afghanistan. They don't bother doing that because, you know, they deal with the wrong people all the time. But, I got involved. And Abdul is the head of the Taliban. He is still the head of the Taliban. And I told Abdul, don't do it anymore. You do it anymore, you're going to have problems. And he said, why do you send me a picture of my house? I said, you're going to have to figure that out, Abdul. And for 18 months we had nobody killed.
[22:20:34]
We did have an agreement, negotiated by Mike Pompeo. It was a very good agreement. The reason it was good, it was -- we were getting out. We would have been out faster than them. But we wouldn't have lost the soldiers. We wouldn't have left many Americans behind. And we wouldn't have left -- we wouldn't have left $85 billion worth of brand new beautiful military equipment behind.
And just to finish, they blew it. The agreement said you have to do this, this, this, this, and they didn't do it. They didn't do it. The agreement was -- was terminated by us because they didn't do what they were supposed to do.
MUIR: I want to move on.
TRUMP: And these people did the worst withdrawal and in my opinion the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.
And by the way, that's why Russia attacked Ukraine. Because they saw how incompetent she and her boss are.
MUIR: President Trump, thank you.
I want to move on now to race and politics in this country. Mr. President, you recently said of Vice President Harris, quote, "I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black."
I want to ask a bigger picture question here tonight. Why do you believe it's appropriate to weigh in on the racial identity of your opponent?
TRUMP: I don't. And I don't care. I don't care what she is. I don't care. You make a big deal out of something. I couldn't care less. Whatever she wants to be is OK with me.
MUIR: But those were your words. So I'm asking...
TRUMP: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, all I can say is I read where she was not Black, that she put out. And I'll say that. And then I read that she was Black. And that's OK. Either one was OK with me. That's up to her. That's up to her.
MUIR: Vice President Harris, your thoughts on this?
HARRIS: I think it's -- I mean, honestly, I think it's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has consistently over the course of his career attempted to use race to divide the American people. You know, I do believe that the vast majority of us know that we have so much more in common than what separates us. And we don't want this kind of approach that is just constantly trying to divide us. And especially by race.
And let's remember how Donald Trump started. He was a -- land, he owned land, he owned buildings, and he was investigated because he refused to rent property to Black families. Let's remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five. Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution.
This is the same individual who spread birther lies about the first Black president of the United States. And I think the American people want better than that. Want better than this. Want someone who understands as I do, I travel our country, we see in each other a friend. We see in each other a neighbor. We don't want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other.
I meet with people all the time who tell me, can we please just have discourse about how we're going to invest in the aspirations and the ambitions and the dreams of the American people? Knowing that regardless of people's color or the language their grandmother speaks, we all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those, not in hate and division.
MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you.
Linsey?
DAVIS: President Trump, this is now your third time...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: This is the most divisive presidency in the history of our country. There's never been anything like it. They're destroying our country. And they come up with things like what she just said, going back many, many years when a lot of people, including Mayor Bloomberg, agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted -- they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty, then they pled we're not guilty.
But this is a person that has to stretch back years, 40, 50 years ago because there's nothing now. I built one of the greatest economies in the history of the world and I'm going to build it again. It's going to be bigger, better, and stronger. But they're destroying our economy. They have no idea what a good economy is.
[22:25:18]
Their oil policies, every single policy. And remember this, she is Biden. You know, she's trying to get away from Biden. I don't know the gentleman, she says. She is Biden. The worst inflation we've ever had, a horrible economy because inflation has made it so bad, and she can't get away with that.
MUIR: Thank you. Your time is up.
Linsey --
HARRIS: I want to respond to that though. I want to just respond briefly.
Clearly, I am not Joe Biden and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country, one who believes in what is possible, one who brings a sense of optimism about what we can do, instead of always disparaging the American people.
I believe in what we can do to -- to strengthen our small businesses, which is why I have a plan -- let's talk about our plans and let's compare the plans.
I have a plan to give startup businesses $50,000 tax deduction to pursue their ambitions, their innovation, their ideas, their hard work.
I have a plan $6,000 for young families for the first year of your child's life to help you in that most critical stage of your child's development.
I have a plan that is about allowing people to be able to pursue what has been fleeting in terms of the American dream by offering a help with down payment of $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.
That's the kind of conversation I believe, David, that people really want tonight as opposed to a conversation that is constantly about belittling and name-calling. Let's turn the page forward.
MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you. Let's turn to policy --
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: President Trump, we have to move on. President Trump --
MUIR: Let's turn to policy, please?
TRUMP: She has a plan to defund the police. She has a plan to confiscate everybody's gun.
DAVIS: President Trump, we do have to move on to other issues.
TRUMP: She has a plan to not allow fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else.
DAVIS: OK.
TRUMP: That's what her plan is until just recently.
(CROSSTALK)
HARRIS: I just need to response because -- MUIR: Linsey, go ahead.
DAVIS: President Trump, President Trump --
HARRIS: -- the former president has said something twice that I need to respond to.
DAVIS: No, I'm sorry.
HARRIS: I just need to respond one time --
DAVIS: No, I'm sorry, we're going to -- we're going to move on, Vice President Harris.
HARRIS: -- to what he has said multiple times.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: President Trump, this is now --
TRUMP: Yes.
DAVIS: -- your third time running for president. You have long vowed repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. You have failed to accomplish that.
You now say you're going to keep Obamacare, quote, unless we can do something much better.
TRUMP: Yeah.
DAVIS: Last month, you said, quote: We're working on it.
So, tonight, nine years after you first started running, do you have a plan? And can you tell us what it is?
TRUMP: Obamacare was lousy health care, always was, it's not very good today. And what I said that if we come up with something and we are working on things, we're going to do it and we're going to replace it.
But remember this: I inherited Obamacare because Democrats wouldn't change it. They wouldn't vote for it. They were unanimous. They wouldn't vote to change it.
If they would have done that, we would have had a much better plan than Obamacare. But the Democrats came up, they wouldn't vote for it.
I had a choice to make when I was president. Do I save it and make it as good as it can be, never going to be great, or do I let it rot?
And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away, I decided and I told my people, the top people and they're very good people, I have a lot of good people in this -- that administration, we rid about the bad ones. We had some real bad ones, too, and so do they. They have really bad ones. The difference is they don't get rid of them, but let me just explain.
I had a choice to make -- do I save it and make it as good as it can be, or do I let it rot? And I saved it. I did the right thing, but it's still never going to be great, and it's too expensive for people.
And what we will do is we're looking at different plans. If we can come up with a plan that's going to cost our people, our population less money and be better health care than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it. But until then, I'd run it as good as it can be run.
DAVIS: So just yes or no, you still do not have a plan?
TRUMP: I have concepts of a plan. I'm not president right now. But if we come up with something, I would only change it if we come up with something that's better and less expensive. And there are concepts and options we -- we have to do that, and you'll be hearing about it in the not too distant future.
DAVIS: Vice President Harris, in 2017, you supported Bernie Sanders' proposal to do away with private insurance and create a government-run health care system. Two years later, you proposed a plan that included a private insurance option. What is your plan today?
[22:30:00]
HARRIS: Well, first of all, I absolutely support and over the last four years as vice president, private healthcare options. But what we need to do is maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act.
But I -- I'll get to that, Linsey. I just need to respond to a previous point that the former president has made.
I've made very clear my position on fracking, and then this business about taking everyone's guns away. Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away. So, stop with the continuous lying about this stuff.
As it relates to the Affordable Care Act, understand, let's just look at the history to know where people stand. When Donald Trump was president, 60 times, he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, 60 times. I was a senator at the time, when I will never forget the early morning hours when it was up for a vote in the United States Senate.
And the late, great John McCain, who you have disparaged as being -- you don't like him, you said at the time, because he got caught. He was an American hero.
The late, great John McCain -- I will never forget that night -- walked onto the Senate floor and said, no, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't get rid of the Affordable Care Act. You have no plan.
And what the Affordable Care Act has done is eliminate the ability of insurance companies to deny people with preexisting conditions. I don't have to tell the people watching tonight. You remember what that was like?
Remember when an insurance company could deny if a child had asthma, if someone was a breast cancer survivor, if a grandparent had diabetes? And, thankfully, as I have been vice president and we over the last four years have strengthened the Affordable Care Act, we have allowed for the first time Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of you, the American people.
Donald Trump said he was going to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. He never did. We did. And now we have capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. Since I have been vice president, we have capped the cost of prescription medication for seniors at $2,000 a year.
And when I am president, we will do that for all people, understanding that the value I bring to this is that access to health care should be a right, and not just a privilege of those who can afford it. And the plan has to be to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not get rid of it.
DAVIS: Vice President Harris, thank you.
HARRIS: Past is prologue in terms of where Donald Trump stands on that.
DAVIS: I want to move to an issue that's important for a lot of us.
TRUMP: She made a mistake.
Number one, John McCain fought Obamacare for 10 years. But it wasn't only him. It was all of the Democrats that kept it going. And you know what? We can do much better than Obamacare, much less money.
But she won't improve private insurance for people, private medical insurance. That's another thing she doesn't want to give.
DAVIS: President Trump...
TRUMP: People are paying privately for insurance that have worked hard and made money, and they want to have private. She wants everybody to be on government insurance, where you wait six months for an operation that you need immediately.
DAVIS: President Trump, thank you.
We have another issue that we'd like to get to that's important for a number of Americans, in particular, younger voters, and that's climate change.
President Trump, with regard to the environment, you say that we have to have clean air and clean water.
Vice President Harris, you call climate change an existential threat.
The question to you both tonight is, what would you do to fight climate change?
And, Vice President Harris, we will start with you, one minute for you each.
HARRIS: Well, the former president had said the climate change is a hoax. And what we know is that it is very real.
You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences who now is either being denied home insurance or it's being jacked up. You ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go.
We know that we can actually deal with this issue. The young people of America care deeply about this issue. And I am proud that, as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy, while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels.
We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs while I have been vice president. We have invested in clean energy, to the point that we are opening up factories around the world. Donald Trump said he was going to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing jobs.
And I'm also proud to have the endorsement of the United Auto Workers and Shawn Fain, who also know that part of building a clean energy economy includes investing in American-made products, American automobiles. It includes growing what we can do around American manufacturing and opening up auto plants, not closing them, like happened under Donald Trump.
DAVIS: Vice President Harris, thank you.
TRUMP: That didn't happen under Donald Trump.
Let me just tell you, they lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs this last month. It's going. They're all leaving. They're building big auto plants in Mexico, in many cases owned by China. They're building these massive plants, and they think they're going to sell their cars into the United States because of these people.
[22:35:15]
What they have given to China is unbelievable. But we're not going to let that. We will put tariffs on those cars so they can't come into our country because they will kill the United Auto Workers and any auto worker, whether it's in Detroit or South Carolina or any other place.
What they've done to business and manufacturing in this country is horrible. We have nothing because they refuse -- you know, Biden doesn't go after people because supposedly China paid him millions of dollars. He's afraid to do it. Between him and his son. They get all this money from Ukraine. They get all this money from all of these different countries.
And then you wonder, why is he so loyal to this one, that one, Ukraine, China? Why is he? Why did he get $3.5 million from the mayor of Moscow's wife? Why did he get -- why did she pay him $3.5 million? This is a crooked administration, and they're selling our country down the tubes.
DAVIS: President Trump, thank you.
TRUMP: Thank you.
MUIR: We'll be right back with closing statements from both of our candidates.
A historic night. This ABC News Presidential Debate from Philadelphia.
Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:41:16]
MUIR: Welcome back tonight. The time has come for closing statements and Vice President Harris, we begin with you.
HARRIS: So I think you've heard tonight two very different visions for our country. One that is focused on the future and the other that is focused on the past and an attempt to take us backward. But we're not going back. And I do believe that the American people know we all have so much more in common than what separates us and we can chart a new way forward.
And a vision of that includes having a plan, understanding the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes, the ambition of the American people, which is why I intend to create an opportunity economy, investing in small businesses, in new families, in what we can do around protecting seniors, what we can do that is about giving hardworking folks a break and bringing down the cost of living.
I believe in what we can do together. That is about sustaining America's standing in the world and ensuring that we have the respect that we so rightly deserve, including respecting our military and ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world. I will be a president that will protect our fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.
I'll tell you, I started my career as a prosecutor. I was a D.A. I was an Attorney General, United States Senator and now Vice President. I've only have one client, the people. And I'll tell you, as a prosecutor, I never asked a victim or witness. Are you a Republican or a Democrat? The only thing I ever asked them, are you OK? And that's the kind of president we need right now. Someone who cares about you and is not putting themselves first.
I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on what we can do over the next 10 and 20 years to build back up our country by investing right now in you, the American people.
DAVIS: Vice President Harris, thank you. President Trump?
TRUMP: So she just started by saying she's going to do this. She's going to do that. She's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3.5 years. They've had 3.5 years to fix the border. They've had 3.5 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn't she done it?
She should leave right now. Go down to that beautiful White House. Go to the Capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do. But you haven't done it, and you won't do it because you believe in things that the American people don't believe in. You believe in things like we're not going to frack. We're not going to take fossil fuel. We're not going to do things that are going to make this country strong, whether you like it or not.
Germany tried that, and within one year they were back to building normal energy plants. We're not ready for it. We can't sacrifice our country for the sake of bad vision. But I just ask one simple question. Why didn't she do it? We're a failing nation. We're a nation that's in serious decline. We're being laughed at all over the world. All over the world. They left.
I know the leaders very well. They're coming to see me. They call me. We're laughed at all over the world. They don't understand what happened to us as a nation. We're not a leader. We don't have any idea what's going on. We have wars going on in the Middle East. We have wars going on with Russia and Ukraine. We're going to end up in a third world war, and it'll be a war like no other because of nuclear weapons, the power of weaponry.
[22:45:05]
I rebuilt our entire military. She gave a lot of it away to the Taliban. She gave it to Afghanistan. What these people have done to our country and maybe toughest of all is allowing millions of people to come into our country. Many of them are criminals, and they're destroying our country. The worst President, the worst Vice President in the history of our country.
DAVIS: President Trump, thank you. And that is our ABC News Presidential Debate from here in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center. I'm Linsey Davis.
MUIR: And I'm David Muir. Thank you for watching here in the U.S. and all over the world. And from all of us here at ABC News, good night.
(LIVE FEED ENDS)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: An historic night with a current vice president, the first ever woman and first ever person of color to be vice president, debating a former president of the United States. Before the debate, Trump supporters expressed hope that the former president would stay focused on issues such as in inflation and immigration.
And that did appear to be a struggle for Donald Trump, perhaps too often, most notably when he invoked what authorities in Springfield, Ohio or - is-- are saying is just false debunked meme that Haitian migrants are stealing and eating pets. He said that on the debate stage tonight.
And if illegal immigration is the most important issue to you as a voter, he did talk about it aggressively but Vice President Harris' supporters have got to be pleased with her performance this evening which was focused on and A, telling voters that she cares about them and she has a plan for them and over and over baiting Donald Trump into talking about crowd sizes and court cases and Nancy Pelosi and Russiagate and grievance.
And he took the bait almost every time, if not every time. He cited Fox hosts as fact-checkers. He invoked Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban as a character witness. It was like a 4chan post come to life. He really took her bait almost every time. If you're a fisherman, as I struggle to be, you would be lucky to have your bait taken so often.
Instead of focusing on Trump filling in the blanks for those voters unfamiliar with her, he focused on stuff as if he was the incumbent.
I'm not sure Harris necessarily did enough to fill in the blanks that undecided voters might have about specifics about her plans but there's no question Democrats have to go good tonight about the trade of Biden for Harris who showed herself to be a strong candidate. She delivered a strong message and yes, she prosecuted the case against Trump.
She started the debate, she began the debate approaching Donald Trump, shaking his hand at the podium, kind of forcing him to shake her hand, introducing herself. And from that moment on, Dana, she took the fight right to him.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: You know, I'm just looking at -- this is the quote that I think really sums up what Kamala Harris -- her whole message was tonight. "You're not running against Joe Biden. You're running against me."
It was obviously a planned line, but it definitely explains how she kind of triangulated, and she separated herself obviously from Donald Trump and where she needed to from Joe Biden. And what was so fascinating is that she didn't do it on defense.
She did it on offense, really, in every turn, there are real weaknesses in the Biden-Harris administration, from the economy to immigration to Afghanistan. Just take Afghanistan for an example. Instead of talking about the disastrous, chaotic withdrawal, she turned it to the fact that he invited the Taliban to Camp David and talked about --
TAPPER: And then he started talking about Abdul.
BASH: Exactly. And then you mentioned that she was baiting him. She baited him and he took the bait every single time, as you said. She was also using the language that he usually uses. She kind of stole it from him -- disgrace, weak, things like that that really get to him. The other thing that I just want to add is that she began to turn to
who she is by saying, I'm not Joe Biden, I'm Donald Trump. I'm from a new generation, a different generation of -- of leaders. And she clearly wanted people to understand what she's made of. Of people who are really wanting to know all of her 17-point policy plans, they might be disappointed. But for people who want to know who she is and what she's made of, they got it tonight.
The voters are going to have to decide, and it's going to take them a while to digest it and we don't want to suggest that we have any idea how this is going to play. But those are the observations for how she handled that and the way that he did not handle it well.
[22:50:03]
ABBY PHILLIP: I think it's pretty simple. I mean, she had a plan. She executed on that plan. The plan was to quite simply, bait Donald Trump to force him to battle on her turf at every turn. I mean, she talks about China. He starts defending his love for Xi Jinping. She talks about, you know, she talks about his sexual assault cases. He starts defending himself on that turf.
She wanted to do that. But I also think -- I did see her trying to kind of really lay the groundwork on the policy issues that the campaign thinks will matter particularly in the State of Pennsylvania, right? The Commonwealth, excuse me, of Pennsylvania. She -- the very first answer that she gave was about her economic policy where she talked about the $50,000 that they want to put out there for small business owners, that they would get in a tax refund.
I thought that was incredibly important because they clearly know that there were a lot of things that they put out on economic policy. Not all of them were received well. That one was received well. And I also thought, you know, there were other moments where she talked a lot about her family. She talked about her upbringing. She talked about how she was raised.
I mean, the plan was to not just introduce herself but to introduce herself specifically to Pennsylvania voters so that they understood on economic policy, on fracking, where she said -- and she executed that plan where -- whereas Trump, I don't know what the plan was that he had.
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Jake, I didn't think I was ever going to witness a debate is devastating as the one that you and Dana moderated back in June were basically tanked his re-election campaign. I think tonight was just as devastating. I think that Kamala Harris pitched a shot out on almost every subject I can think of.
She shut Trump down on abortion. She shut Trump down on January 6th in democracy. She shut him down on national security and turned to the former president and said, "The military leaders who served with you think that you're a disgrace." And then, as Dana mentioned, very powerfully at the end made the point that she is the candidate of change, and we need to turn the page from a decade of division and polarization. On substance, I think she pitched a shot at and I think she did on
style, as well. I mean, my -- the image of the debate to me is she's there, happy, smiling, expressive, shaking her head at and dismay at things Trump was saying. And Trump looked angriest, scowling. She was looking directly at the audience. He was looking at the moderators and arguing with them and something else.
WALLACE: He was -- Donald Trump looked old tonight. And you know, somebody said on my show on Saturday, she wins just by showing up. I didn't know that that was going to be true. I think it was.
PHILLIP: He was reacting to every --
WALLACE: She was the candidate -- just from the moment the two of them were on stage.
PHILLIP: He was reacting to everything that she said.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, what you saw, really, was --
PHILLIP: -- was under control.
COATES: Vise President Kamala Harris prosecuting this debate with surgical precision. She was aware as she must have been as a prosecutor that the second you were inside of a courtroom, the jury is looking at everything you're doing.
Muted microphones doesn't matter. Her verbal, non-verbal cues, her body language, her incredulous expressions at one point putting her hand under her chin to demonstrate that she was completely baffled by his line of defense.
Losing a battle of expert witnesses you're talking about. Talking about national security advisers. Talking about nobel laureates. Talking about the whole litany of people who do not buy what he's selling. Also, very well-trained and seasoned and knowing how to grapple with somebody who is going to possibly be bombastic, petulant, defensive and have a derailed effort. She focused on all of those things.
I saw somebody who -- when she came out, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Kamala Harris on behalf of Kamala Harris. She came out with that in mind, I think she executed. Now, Donald Trump tried to derail her a number of times.
But notice I'm saying the words Donald Trump in the way she did. It wasn't President Trump. She was referring to him as similar as you would in a courtroom, the defendant -- the defendant under his title reminding you of what -- how did she phrase it? "What he left us with," it was a really dynamite performance.
TAPPER: So, Anderson, I mean, his lack of parrying, his lack of making Kamala Harris and the Biden-Harris record the focus, I mean, if you watched this debate and you didn't know that she was the incumbent vice president, you saw a debate where Donald Trump was really on defense and he and his record were the subject of the debate not the incumbent leader.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Kamala Harris did tonight with no governor, senator, politician, business-person who has run against him in primaries for in 2016 and certainly anything he faced in 2020 has figured out what no one else figured out how to do.
[22:55:07]
Certainly, Marco Rubio didn't figure it out by going after little hands. He debased himself as many have. I want to show just some key moments where she needled Donald Trump on the most sort of obvious, basic things that we all know he has said, we all know are weak points, to devastating effect. Let's just take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Let's talk about what Donald Trump left us. Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. Donald Trump left us the worst public health epidemic in a century. Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump's plan would actually explode the deficit.
I'm going to actually do something really unusual and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies, because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer.
And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early, out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. If you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is if he didn't make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: John King, it was the moment she talked about his crowd size of all things and people, not even crowd size, it was people being bored and leaving his rallies early. I don't think he ever recovered from that. He started shouting and he never stopped.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She triggered him there. I think she was uneven at the top. Not a bad answer, first answer in the economy, but not a great answer. She got her footing during the abortion conversation, where she felt more comfortable. And then she triggered him with the people leave your rallies. And he lost it and he was angry.
From that moment on, his voice went up. He started angry. He told a lot of lies. Daniel Dale is going to be up all night. We should start a GoFundMe for his espresso machine. He did. And so, what did she do? She triggered him on COVID. January 6th in democracy. Abortion, chaos, lies, and his anger. What are those? Those are the issues that turned the American suburbs away from Donald Trump and why he lost the 2020 election. Those are the voters who were waiting to see if she could stand there
and be a plausible president next to him. She cleared that bar. That doesn't mean she won their votes, but she cleared that bar with eight weeks left in the election. She stood next to a former president, and she more than held her own.
And on many of the issues, she schooled him. She simply schooled him because she triggered him into his lies and into his anger, which does not sell well with the middle of the electorate that will decide things eight weeks from tonight.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I have been involved in a lot of these. I help prepare a candidate for these debates, six of them. And I've been watching him since I was a little boy. I've scarcely seen a one like this in -- and the degree to which she dominated this.
And you know, part of it was -- but kicking and part of it was kind of someone doing it themselves and I said earlier jokingly that you know, when they said he's a Muhammad Ali in the debates, that, you know, their fear has to be that he knocks himself out. He kind of helped, but she set him up as John said.
But these things are more than about issues. These things are tests. These campaigns, these debates, they're oral exams for the hardest job on the planet. And people judge you in these moments, and they judge whether you have the metal to stand up to that pressure to be coherent, to deliver a case. And she certainly did that tonight.
COOPER: Ben?
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She whooped him. She just whooped him. And I think that there's been a desire, you know, in good fiction, there's like wish fulfillment. Like, you know, you watch a movie because you want something to happen, like some great romance.
People have wanted to see somebody put this bully in his place. And people have watched contender after contender fail to put him in his place. She got up there and she put him in his place. She baited him and then she spanked him. She baited him and then she spanked him.
And it -- not only did she pass the commander in chief test, he failed it. He failed it. Do you want this guy dealing with a dictator? When he can literally just be, I mean, you could see the punches coming. He couldn't get out of the way.
COOPER: I mean, if you can so unhinge somebody by saying people leave your rally, any world leader can manipulate you into anything.
JONES: So, I think that she passed the test. He failed it. But I think also, she was speaking for the people. She really was speaking for the people. I think the right-wing may not see it, but she kept coming back to her middle-class background.
[23:00:02] He kept talking about himself and himself. He went down every rabbit hole imaginable. Kamala Harris did something great for every parent in America.
